


Taking a Chance

by jaydick_love



Category: DCU
Genre: Falling In Love, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 17:15:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16391867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaydick_love/pseuds/jaydick_love
Summary: Where the Red Hood gets himself captured by his enemy, Black Mask. He's injured, and needs help recovering. Dick is there for him.





	Taking a Chance

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Red Hood wasn’t supposed to be at Black Mask’s mercy. Wrists strung up above his head, dangling from ropes attached to the ceiling. Jason had to stay on his tippy toes to keep his wrists from breaking at the angle he was tied at. And his hood and domino mask were gone, leaving his face vulnerable. It wasn’t like anyone would recognize Jason. He wasn’t famous, or anyone significant. He just hated feeling exposed. But it had been quite satisfying when they ripped off both his hood and domino mask without knowing that they had safety features on them. Within a few seconds of taking off the masks, the hood detonated and the domino mask began electrocuting. One goon was blown up, the other was semi fried, and that made Jason smirk despite the situation he had somehow gotten himself into.

The most alarming thing though was that Jason was drugged. He could barely move his limbs. Of course, it was also because he was tied up and Black Mask wasn’t taking any chances. But whatever fucked up drug they had injected into Jason’s blood stream was making the antihero drowsy, out of it, and painfully numb. So numb to the point where all he could do was wiggle his fingers and had a vague sense of his limbs. It was like being super drunk. Not in control of his body. But this was a whole other level of not in control. It was like being super drunk times fifty.

“I’ve been waiting for too long for this moment.” Black Mask chuckles, his dark face sneering into evil delightment. “The Red Hood at my mercy. Ready for me to kill once and for all and get the fuck out of my business. I’ll take my territory and clients back. My money.”

The glint of a blade caught Jason’s eye. Even in his muddled state of mind, he could tell when there was a weapon. And Jason was getting nervous. The Bats should be here soon. They had Jason’s GPS location before his helmet exploded and he dropped off the radar. He only hoped they would get to Black Mask’s lair before he was gutted and further drugged up out of his mind.

Of course, Jason was never that lucky though.

“Remember when you blew up my offices with a rocket launcher?” Black Mask said angrily. “A fucking piece of shrapnel nearly got my throat! And you should die for everything you’ve done to hurt my business and myself. But I wanna make you suffer. Use you as my punching bag.”

What was with everyone wanting to use Jason as their personal punching bag?

Before Jason could register, or try to wiggle his clumsy limbs away, the knife was suddenly thrusted into the lower part of his abdomen. All the air woodshed out of the antihero’s body, and the only sound was a choked noise of agony. Jason tried to double over in a natural reflex, but he was tied up so he couldn’t, and it just made it all the worse. His wrists screamed in agony when he jerked. Jason was gasping, blood dribbling around the blade and oozing down his uniform.

Through his muddle mind, Jason realized that Black Mask must have finally found a knife that would pierce through his high tech armor. Something that he would have to look into once he made it out of this. If he made it out of this.

“Boss man!” A goon shouted, but before he could get anything else out, there was the loud shattering of glass that made Jason’s head scream in protest at the noise. Or maybe it was the goons screaming. Either way, Jason couldn’t tell in his drugged up, pain filled brain. The pain and drug was making everything blurring together, making things hard to comprehend.

Through blurry eyes, Jason saw the struggle occurring. Nightwing, the Replacement, Demon Brat, and Daddy Bats were disarming and subduing the goons. Finally.

The sharp twist of a knife in Jason’s belly brought him back to Black Mask in front of him. More blood leaked out, and then the pressure of the knife left as Black Mask yanked it out and ran for his life. Vaguely, Jason realized he had screamed in agony at the knife’s twisting, but he was so far gone in a haze of drugs and pain that he couldn’t stop it. Even more blood pooled out from Jason’s jagged knife wound, and shit. He was gonna die. No way the Bats would be able to get Jason the medical attention he needed in time, especially since he was injected with who knows what fucked up drug and/or poison. He was bleeding like a damn faucet and he was losing his senses. Black Mask had taken out the blade to increase his chances of bleeding out and dying. A smart move on his part.

Jason closed his eyes, and what felt like forever, the struggling of goons finally stopped and he felt gentle hands working at the ropes on his legs.

“Hood?! Can you hear me?” It was Nightwing, worry plain in his voice.

“Fuck off, Golden Boy. Lemme die in peace.” Jason groaned out, blearily cracking his heavy eyes open.

“Good, you’re still conscious.”

Behind him, he felt the presence of the Bat. There was a clicking sound, then a black cape was firmly wrapping around his wound. Jason gasped at the pain it caused, eyes nearly rolling to the back of his head as Batman tied his cape around Jason’s midsection.

“Coulda warned me.” Jason complained as Batman then began working off his wrist restraints.

“Need to put pressure on your wound or you’ll bleed out.”

“Lil late for that, don’t ya think?” Jason gasped out.

Then his bindings were gone, and Jason immediately sagged into Nightwing’s arms. He couldn’t feel his legs for shit. Couldn’t really feel much besides the pain. Come to think of it, it was actually kind of hard to talk. He was slurring his words for sure.

“What did he do to you?” Nightwing demanded as he struggled to hold up Jason’s heavy frame.

“Drugged me. Dunno what. Not familiar. Could be poison.” Jason’s head lolled around alarmingly, and he fought to hold his head up. Instead, all he could do was still his head to just to lean against his left shoulder. Or maybe it was Dick’s shoulder? “Stabbed me too.”

“No shit. Damn you’re heavy.” Nightwing grunted.

Jason coughed, and that’s when he just knew, he was utterly fucked even though the Bat Clan was here. More blood gushed out at the reaction, and then one of the key signs of some bad wounds: blood began trickling out the side of his mouth.

Batman barked some orders at the Replacement and Demon Spawn that Jason couldn’t be bothered to hear or understand, then helped Nightwing take a hold of Jason. Both men were on either side of Jason, hauling his heavy ass up onto his feet and dragging him out the lair and up the stairs. The antihero really tried to use his legs, but they wouldn’t do what he wanted them to. They just kind of twitched instead of walking. Jason wondered if the knife had gone deep enough to hit his spine, and shivered at the thought of being paralyzed. No, there was no way Black Mask dug the knife that deep. It had to just be the drugs/poison/whatever the fuck shit he was injected with.

Hopefully.

Bruce picked up on the lack of feeling in Jason’s leg. He knew something was wrong, “Can you feel anything?”

“...Yes… No. I dunno.” Jason mumbled. Wow, since when were stairs so blurry? He didn’t know it, but his eyes were closing. Dick made him aware of it though.

“Hood, stay awake!” Dick snapped as they finished hauling his ass up the stairs and began to drag him out.

Jason tried to glare, but his face probably was just contorted in pain. Or maybe he just looked pitiful. Probably pitiful.

The three of them made it to the Batmobile, and they set Jason in the front seat, Dick straddling his lap. Bruce hopped into the driver’s seat and began driving like a psycho. If Jason didn’t die from the drug/poison and bleeding he was going to die from Bruce crashing the Batmobile. Jason would have yelled and insisted on driving if he weren’t injured, because that was how crazy Bruce was driving. Briefly, Jason thought he was driving so crazy in order to save Jason.

“Why the fuck are you in my lap?” Jason groaned, more blood flicking out of mouth as he spoke.

“So I can start getting off your damn armor. Leslie is going to need it gone.”

Jason just closed his eyes. As soon as he did, there was a light slap on his cheek, and yet another annoyed but worried, “Stay awake!”

His eyes cracked open just barely enough to count as being awake as Nightwing began disarming the safety features on his armor. Jason was alarmed that he couldn’t feel Nightwing’s heavy weight on his lap, or the fact that he couldn’t really feel the pull of his armor and clothes being taken off. He felt the pressure of the cape leave, then return, which earned another pained gasp out of his mouth. He was stripped down to just his tight, black, under leggings, his bloodied and ruined armor a heap in the backseat. All the while, Dick was poking and prodding him to keep him awake. Whenever Jason’s eyes began to close, Dick would yell, pinch, or either apply more pressure to his wound. All of them caused pain, and Jason somehow stayed awake. He didn’t understand how he was still awake with all the blood soaking through the cape and soaking through Dick’s uniform.

The Batmobile screeched into the Cave a few minutes later, and Alfred was already there with a stretcher. Dick flung the door open, and as he stood, Jason saw just how much of his blood was staining Dick’s uniform beyong his hands and arms. It was all over his well defined arms and chest, and handsomely worried face. Jason didn’t have much time to observe much more about Dick before he hooked his arms under Jason’s armpits and hauled his ass out of the car. Jason moaned as it pulled his wound, and the pulling sensation kept going until he felt Bruce lift from under his legs and the two laid Jason out on the stretcher.

Things truly got blurry then.

Jason saw the dim lights of the cave, then the familiar bright fluorescent lights of the med bay. Then a more focused, bright light shining into his eyes and a familiar face that brought a fond and tender feeling to his slowly beating heart.

“Jason? Are you with us?” Leslie asked, moving the light pen from eye to eye.

Jason tried to find his voice, he really did, but instead he found a few coughs that spurted blood from his lips some more. Leslie hurriedly bustled around, Alfred helping her move equipment and get down to business.

There was warmth on one of his hands, and he looked downwards. Dick was holding his hand, giving it a soft squeeze. It felt nice. It was something that Jason wanted, but didn’t realize he wanted. He tried to squeeze Dick’s hand back, but all his hand did was twitch it’s fingers around in some horrible resemblance of a hand squeeze. Still so damn numb.

“Stay awake, Jay.” Dick pleaded. Sometime during the bustling, Dick’s mask had disappeared, leaving his eyes to be seen. Such pretty blue eyes. So vivid. Jason felt like he could stare at those eyes forever, get lost in the depth of them. They were like the ocean that Jason had seen while flying from Europe to America. Such pretty deep and light blues mingling together, full of mystery and beauty. Such depth and complexity.

“Jason!” Dick shouted, but it was a vague noise. Jason felt like he was under those blue depths, underwater. Couldn’t hear very well.

It was the drugs. Or the blood loss. Or possibly both.

Then the darkness settled in, and Jason couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, his world blacking out as he heard his name being yelled over and over, like he was sinking underwater, drowning. And he let it happen, let the pain float away as he spiraled down into a blissful, dark, unconsciousness.

___________________________________________________________________________

 

There was an annoying beeping noise.

That was how Jason woke up. The repetitive, annoying sound of a heart monitor.

Beep… Beep… Beep.

He blinked his weary eyes open, pupils struggling to adjust to the fluorescent lights of the med bay. They weren’t even that bright, Jason’s eyes were just that sensitive. Or either his eyes had been closed for a long time.

“Hey. Welcome back.” Dick’s looming face appeared above him, a tired but relieved smile on his chiseled face.

Jason blinked a few more times before he felt like he could talk. “Hey.” His voice was raspy and weak. He had a flashback of blood coming out his throat, coughing up blood instead of being able to speak. He shivered at the memory, glad there was no need for a tube down his throat.

“How you feeling?”

“I dunno.” Jason flexed his fingers, moved his chaffed and bruised wrists around, wiggled his toes. They didn’t feel numb. He could see his toes rustle the blanket. Phew.

“Well, you’re alive at least.”

“Hm. Yeah, I am.” Jason tried to sit up, which Dick immediately put an end to. He put a hand on Jason’s shoulder, keeping him pinned down to the bed.

“Do you want to sit up?”

“Yeah. Wanted to see if I could move my body.” Jason shuddered at the memory of not being able to move, not being able to feel anything. Although he wiggled his toes, he wanted to see if he could move the rest of his body. Most likely he would be able to if he was able to move his toes, but he needed that reassurance.

“Don’t. At least, not for another three weeks or so, according to Leslie. Or you’ll just hurt yourself again.”

“Mmm. With all this morphine in my system, I don’t think you have to worry about me moving too much. Feels like an elephant is sitting on me.”

“If it hurts too much, you can just press the button.”

Jason looked down, and what do you know. A freaking morphine button laying right by his hand. It must be his birthday or some shit. God bless Leslie. Jason pressed it, and the warmth of the drug flowing through his system had whatever backburner pain in his body dispersing. It also had him drifting off to sleep, his eyes slipping shut. 

 

Jason went in and out of consciousnesses thanks to all the drugs Leslie had pumped through his veins. She knew the Bats had a tendency to move around when they shouldn’t, so she made sure that Jason wouldn’t be able to hardly move at all until she deemed okay. There were snippets of what happened after he was brought back to the Cave shared with him.

Jason had sustained a stab wound that had graced his kidney. Luckily, it was just a small cut into his kidney, a majority of his muscle catching the blade. It seemed like a stab meant to cause pain. Not something that would kill him quickly. Just painfully and slowly. It was meant for torture. Black Mask had wanted Red Hood to suffer. Which was somehow a good thing, even though it was a stab wound, because it was easy for Leslie to repair. The bleeding had crawled it’s way up his stomach, which caused the blood to come up his throat. Jason was just glad his internal organs had not been spilling out of his body, but stayed where they belonged inside his body. He didn’t need that to happen ever again.

Black Mask was captured not long after. Bruce had made sure of that. He was currently locked up in solitary awaiting his court dates. It made Jason sigh a breath of relief to know Black Mask was taken care of for now. Obviously, Jason wouldn’t let the fucker live much longer. He just had to wait a few months and heal up before he could pay off some guards to let him go in and kill the bastard.

Jason was expecting a long recovery. A painful one once he was off the morphine. An agonizingly boring and slow healing process that would most likely mean he would have to stay in the Cave and manor with all the other baby Bats and Daddy Bats. Which he wasn’t looking forward to. Jason would rather just be unconscious whenever the others were around, especially Bruce.

What the antihero didn’t expect during his healing process was Dick constantly being there. He was there nearly every day in the Cave, occasionally holding Jason’s hand. And when Jason was conscious, he would babble about his day and whatnot. It was nice. Jason didn’t expect more from Dick, but of course Dick did more. He helped Jason bathe, shower, rebandage his wound. He even helped Jason take a piss when Leslie gave the okay for Jason to move around to only go to the bathroom.

And for some god awful reason, Jason liked his help. Dick was cherry as always, positive even as he helped Jason pull down the scrubs when he went to the bathroom and witnessed the ugly stab wound when he helped redress his wound. And maybe it was that brightness that made Jason’s heart ache and twist in a way that he wanted to squash down and never feel again.

But he couldn’t squash the warmth in his chest every time he woke up and saw Dick’s perfect smile and those sea blue eyes. And the damn feeling never stopped growing. It never relented or dimmed. If anything, the damn warm feeling got more and more intense. And his stupid heart would be so damn disappointed every time he woke up and Dick wasn’t there. Of course, Dick had other things to do like his day job as a cop and patrol at night. But as soon as Jason saw that beautiful man zoom into the Cave on his bike and head straight to him in the med bay, his heart leapt out of his chest and his spirits lifted.

Within three weeks of being in the Cave, Jason knew what it was called. A crush. A goddamn crush was what he had. He had a crush just like when he was running around as Robin. A big fat crush on the amazing Nightwing. Jason didn’t expect the feeling to return, he figured as long as he kept his distance, it wouldn’t. And it hadn’t returned until he got stabbed and was stuck in the Cave.

 

Once Jason was all healed up and Leslie finally let him out of the careful watch of the Bats, he went to his shit hole apartment. There, he could not be bothered by Bruce and all his little look alikes. And at his apartment, he didn’t have to see Dick all the time. This crush was getting out of hand. Jason needed to squash it if he still could. 

The first day back on his own, Jason mostly just lazied around. Coming back from the pit made Jason stir crazy and want to do so many things. Life was too precious not to. But at times, like when he was broody and moody, Jason wholeheartedly gave himself into laziness. There were times to be productive. And all the other times to not be productive were when he was feeling a bit too much like a brooding Bruce.

Jason’s little lazy fest on the couch with Netflix on was interrupted of course. Because when could Jason ever get a break? There was a light knocking on the door, and after glancing at his security cams, it showed Dick at his door. Of course the one person Jason had been sulking about was at his doorstep. It was like the saying speak of the devil, except think of the devil this time. Jason considered not opening the door, but his little heart lifted up a bit from his brooding just looking at Dick standing at his door. Damn emotions and feelings. So Jason got up and took his sweet time to the door, which there occurred another impatient rap on the door. Finally Jason opened the door and leaned against the door frame.

Dick was just standing there looking like the usual fashion disaster he was. A jade green ugly polo, jeans that had holes in them, and some obnoxious red sneakers. He looked a bit like a ugly Christmas tree. But that ugly Christmas tree was holding a bag of Chinese take out with a face that shone bright than a star that would go on top of a Christmas tree.

“Hey Jay. I brought food. I figured you probably don’t have anything to eat, or cook.” Dick offered with a grin.

“You guessed right.” Jason couldn’t help but smile back. He opened the door wider and Dick stepped inside.

“I got you your favorite. Chicken curry and jasmine rice.” Dick immediately made himself at home inside Jason’s shabby place. He set down the food on the coffee table and sat down on the couch, kicking those ridiculous red sneakers up on the coffee table and opening up boxes of food. Jason sat down besides Dick, raising up an inquiring eyebrow.

“So, what compelled you to bring me food?”

Dick shrugged as he broke a pair of chopsticks apart. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay.” His eyes were withholding something though, they were flicking to anywhere but Jason. The antihero’s heart did a little pitter patter, because there was a possibility that Dick did not just come over to give him food. Maybe he came over because he had feelings too. The possibility was small, but it was there. Why come all the way across town to his shitty apartment when Jason was given the okay he was fine on his own?

Should Jason take the chance? He thought about it as he grabbed his box of takeout, slowly opening the container and breaking open some chopsticks. To hell with it. Jason wasn’t going to be a little bitch, just sitting there and wondering. He was done with this caged feeling of not knowing. He needed to know. Needed to try at least.

“Hey Dick.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you come here to just give me food? Or did you have another reason to why you came over here?”

Dick looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that, you live across town. And I was given the okay to be on my own again. Yet you came all the way down here, unannounced.”

Dick blinked, stumped. Or either caught. One of the two. Or both. Jason couldn’t tell which one.

“Jay, I just care about you.” Dick set down his container of food and faced Jason. Jason copied him, setting his food down and facing Dick.

“Why else did you come down here?” Jason asked again, scooting closer to Dick. He gaged Dick’s reaction, none so far. So Jason scooted closer again, close enough that their knees were about to bump. He leaned forward, and slowly cupped his hand on Dick’s cheek. Those blue eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t move away from Jason’s touch. He still didn’t move away when Jason leaned forward so that there were just inches apart.

“Tell me, why’d you come down here to see me?” Jason asked again.

“I-” Dick mumbled, cheeks flushing red. “I- I-” He clearly wasn’t going to be able to get any words out, so Jason did it for him.

“You can tell me to stop at any moment and we can go back to being normal.” Jason murmured, and leaned forward slowly. His heart was beating a million times a minute, and he swore Dick could probably hear it. His body was thrumming with nerves. Their lips brushed, and Jason didn’t expect it to be returned, but the kiss was returned. Dick kissed him back, a hand coming up to curl into Jason’s hair. It was tentative and gentle at first, hesitant. Then when it became clear that the both of them were into it, Jason deepened the kiss, opening his mouth. Dick’s tongue quested his mouth, learning the shape of it and making Jason shiver.

After a few more long dizzying and unreal moments, Jason had to pull away. Breathing was a thing that he needed to do, especially when his gut was starting to ache from not doing that. Both of them were breathing heavily like they had ran a mile, Jason more so than Dick thanks to his damn wound.

“I would seduce you further, but ya know, stab wound.” Jason joked.

Dick laughed. “Maybe when you’re feeling better.”

“When I’m feeling better? So that means I’ve got you?”

“For now. Don’t fuck it up.”

“I’ll try not to. Go easy on me, I got stabbed, ya know.” Jason joked, then leaned forward again to give Dick another kiss, his heart leaping with joy as Dick yet again returned the kiss.


End file.
